History of the area

The Borderland Between Occident and Orient
The historical legacy of this area is the unchanged organisation of the space, which is the consequence of it having been the border area between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. The Sava River was a natural line of demarcation and part of the 1,750 km-long border between East and West, while the natural floodplain was a buffer zone. The thousands of years of river sedimentation created natural elevations, “ridges” as they are called, which were the template for the formation of the military settlements. Road networks, corridors through the marshy areas were formed, as well as settlements along the roads, pasturelands and ploughland that have retained their authenticity in the organisation of the space to this day.
The border, or rather, the Military Frontier, existed in this area for almost 350 years, and protected Europe from the campaigns of conquest, serving also as a
“cordon sanitaire” against infectious diseases. However, the border was open in a controlled way for trade, business and cultural exchange. Along it were forts with their look-out towers and houses on posts (chardaks); however, it was protected not only by the fortifications but also, and much more so, by the swamps, forests and rivers that were factored into the military strategy, The Military Frontier was demobilised only in 1873, and the part of the Frontier along the Sava, today part of the Nature Park, was the longest-lasting region of the Military Frontier.